Real people, real reactions

Online casinos introduced live dealer tables for two main reasons: 1) to assuage the “it’s rigged” crowd by showing real cards dealt by a real person, and 2) to make the experience feel more like that of a real casino. Recently, a clip from a Twitch live stream went viral, showing a blackjack dealer cussing out and insulting a player, which I found 100% hilarious. We need more of this – online casinos should absolutely have tables at which the dealer can talk trash to the players to their heart’s content.

The clip was posted by Twitch streamer Capp, who appears to stream lots of Grand Theft Auto V and other games. On this night, he was also jumping from table to table at FanDuel Casino.

tells him to hurry up

There isn’t much lead-up to the 46-second clip, but Capp does encounter the dealer briefly a few minutes earlier, when he switches to his table to see the dealer manually shuffling all the decks in the shoe. In the text chat, Capp asks him how old he is and then tells him to hurry up – all while his viewers are laughing along with him – before moving on to a different table. At one point, the dealer does seem to briefly glance up the chat and subtly shake his head.

Dealer had enough

After losing money and patience at another table, Capp deposits and returns to the previous dealer at the very moment the dealer realized he made a mistake setting up the shoe. Looking at the camera and then off screen, he said, “I f**ked up,” before announcing that he had forgotten the mid-shoe cut card. He fixed his error, but Capp seized on the opportunity, telling the dealer he was going to get fired, laughing all the while.

You up four in the morning playing blackjack, f**king loser.”

When the dealer got everything reset and looked up to see what Capp had said, he responded in kind. The two had a back-and-forth, Capp via text chat and the dealer responding verbally on camera. As Capp egged him on, repeating that he was going to get fired, the dealer retorted: “You up four in the morning playing blackjack, f**king loser.”

The clip that follows is the main interaction between the two. WARNING: the language used, both verbally and in text chat, may be offensive to some viewers.

Not a whole lot happened after that, but about a minute and a half later, a message popped up on the screen asking the players to be patient while the casino checked video records. After a couple minutes, play resumed, the dealer dealt a couple more hands, then went on break.

Give that man a promotion

I have no idea if that dealer was or is going to be punished, but I sure hope he isn’t. What he did was fantastic and we need more of it. Let’s get some tables going where the dealer has an open invitation to light up the players. A line would need to be drawn, of course, as we can’t have things like racism or sexism, but card dealers routinely take abuse, so it’s about time they get to dish it out.

And again, what this guy said was funny! The streamer was giving him a hard time in order to entertain his own viewers and make money in the process, so why not let the dealer snap right back? This is far from unprecedented. Stand-up comedians goof on their audiences when they do crowd work; Don Rickles made a legendary career out of insult comedy.

Dick’s Last Resort is a chain of restaurants where the staff is intentionally obnoxious and “purposely provide bad service.” Front and center on its website is the slogan: “Putting the F.U. in fun.” And it’s been around since 1985, so something must be going right over there.

tried to get a reaction out of the man, got one, and clearly enjoyed it

While online casino games are obviously entertaining in their own right, sitting at home and clicking buttons can get a little boring. Dealers can interact with players, but let’s take it a step further and set up some tables with dealers like the one who snapped at Capp. Capp tried to get a reaction out of the man, got one, and clearly enjoyed it. So did his viewers.

The point of the tables would not be to be mean, but to add a little spice to the game. Just like audience members close to the stage know they might get picked on at a stand-up comedy show, players at these tables know they might get some barbs thrown their way. They are game and so is the dealer.

If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But give let’s give it a shot, “f**cking losers.”